It’s only May but the way the presidential campaign is conducted on both sides has already degenerated to extremely trivial discussions of personalities instead of an intelligent analysis of political and economic programs and positions. The number of times I have heard about Romney’s dog and his teenage pranks is daunting. And yesterday I turned on the Fox News (N. is convinced it is a comedy channel and watches it whenever we stay in the hotel as postprandial entertainment) and saw a long program where people pretended to be scandalized by the text of Obama’s autobiography that has been on the bestseller list for 4 years. In hushed voices, they informed the country that Obama smoked a few reefers in high school and even – oh, horror! – once extinguished a cigarette butt on a carpet.
Seriously, folks, haven’t we heard enough of carpets that were burned and dogs that were transported carelessly thirty years ago? I have a feeling that after the stories of the candidates’ college years get milked for all they are worth, we will start hearing scandalized reports of how Romney took a toy truck away from another little boy at the age of two and Obama ate too much ice-cream at the age of four. I wonder who will be the first unintelligent commentator to use such childhood stories as proof of Romney’s capitalist greed and Obama’s Socialist self-indulgence.
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